MEDEA TEXT RESPONSE

[priyankasav]

Hi there! I was wondering if anyone could take a look at my Medea text response and give some feedback? I really need to improve so even a mark considering end-of-year exam marking would be really helpful!! THANKYOU



The audience would expect Medea to be a witch; does Euripides fulfil those expectations, or does he present a more ‘normal’ woman?

Set within the patriarchal zeitgeist of Ancient Athens, Euripides’ Medea explores and even challenges the set roles and perceptions of women of the time. Through Medea, the audience is confronted with a woman seemingly maleficent and witch-like. While Euripides constructs Medea as a vengeful and threatening woman, he ultimately portrays her to be a representation of the common woman in Ancient Athens. It is her decision to seek justice for herself and not her portrayal, that deviates her depiction from that of the typical Ancient Athenian woman.

Euripides presents Medea as having a revengeful and callous disposition. The first exposure the audience has to Medea herself is her cry that she “wants [her children] to die along with [their] father,” discomforting the audience with her upfront violent tendencies. Not only were woman not present in the male public space in Ancient Greece, but it would have been highly unusual for the audience to hear woman screeching in a public domain. Further discomforting the audience, this line is presented in an eerie high pitch male voice. This level of unease in the audience suggests that Euripides intentionally establishes Medea as violent and vengeful in the seminal scene of the play. This allows Euripides to instantly position his audience to perceive Medea as having a threatening nature, which he maintains through the course of the play. This depiction of Medea is compounded by her reaction to Glauce and King Creon’s death; that it would “make [her] twice as happy if they died in agony.” Coupled with the gruesome and detailed imagery of the murders, Euripides presents Medea to have a sadistic nature, which collides with the expectation the audience have for woman of the time: to be nurturing and refrain from violence and revenge. This expectation of all woman being nurturing and also motherly is also absent from the construction of Medea in that she claims that killing her children is a “necessary deed.” This callous act of filicide ultimately having no repercussions for Medea and Euripides’ positioning of her to be above the audience and human level, laughing in her chariot drawn by dragons, tacitly determines her to be villainous. Euripides presents to the audience a dimension of Medea being callous and violent, which they are unaccustomed to witnessing in women hence, complying with their expectation of her being witch-like.

However, Euripides portrays Medea as a typical wife in Ancient Greece and her suffering as an unjust norm of the time. The first mention of Medea in the play is the nurse, a common woman, lamenting that Medea “seeks to please her husband in all she does.” In the years that they have been married, Medea has always been obedient to Jason and supported him hence, for him to marry another woman is a deep betrayal. This creates a sympathy for Medea from the audience as she has fulfilled the duties that a woman of the time would have been expected to carry out, including giving Jason two sons. This is highly valued by the Ancient Athenian society who take pride in having sons to continue their legacy and house to carry their reputation on. Euripides’ portrayal of Medea being the ideal wife and her own perception of herself of being a “cruel husbands plaything,” further elicits sympathy from the audience for her and works to dilute the violent and callous depictions of her through the play. Euripides also presents Medea as the typical Ancient Athenian wife through the Tutors response to Medea’s adversity, asking if Jason “is so different from the rest of mankind.” The Tutor’s allusion to the notion that Medea should be somewhat desensitised to her husband’s infidelity, highlights that in Ancient Athens, male infidelity was a common occurrence that is essentially defined ‘mankind.’ Hence, Medea is just like the many other women of the time who would have been betrayed by their husbands, despite being the ideal wife of the time and “keeping the marriage intact.” Euripides suggests that Medea has the same experiences as many women of the time, making her an accurate representation of women at the time, and thus, a ‘normal’ woman.

For Euripides therefore, it is Medea’s decision to seek justice for herself and not her portrayal, that depicts her as not the typical woman. Without a man, Medea is “driven without rights into exile.” This is due to the fact, that in that time period, a woman without a husband or family had no value in society and hence, no access to legal or societal recourse in times of adversity. Not only was Medea denied access to justice due to being a woman, she was also an outsider in Ancient Athenian society where citizenship was highly valued. Creon also had no obligation or responsibility to listen to Medea’s pleas as “laws [were] prescribed for men.” It is due to the plight of women and outsiders of the time, that the only way Medea could obtain justice was to devise a ruthless plan herself. Euripides utilises the imagery “uphill flow the water of sacred rivers” to suggests a drastic change in the ways of nature. He suggests that women, being “cowards when it comes to fighting,” were not expected to fight for themselves as they were not considered to have strength or courage to fight in their nature. As a result, Medea deciding to take action against Jason is where her character diverts from that of a typical woman of Ancient Greece.

Euripides presents to his audience the character of Medea as the ideal wife in Ancient Athens, betrayed by her husband, with a callous and passionate disposition. However, it is her decision to seek revenge that truly digresses from the audience of the time’s expectation of her. Euripides presents her revenge as having no repercussions for her and even as being rewarded from the Gods, suggesting that women of the time were capable of being vengeful and could strike back when wronged.

[not.yet.a.nerd]

Hey so I'm another yr 12 student so my feedback may not be entirely accurate. Also I'm mainly pointing out some things I found in need of change but there's lots of good stuff in here too. Some background information- Medea is set in Corith, but was performed in Athens (two different cities). So I wouldn't say Medea is a representative of an just an Athenian woman, but a Greek woman.

Not only were woman not present in the male public space in Ancient Greece, but it would have been highly unusual for the audience to hear woman screeching in a public domain. Further discomforting the audience, this line is presented in an eerie high pitch male voice. This level of unease in the audience suggests that Euripides intentionally establishes Medea as violent and vengeful in the seminal scene of the play. The start of paragraph 1 is sounding a little language analysis-y. I wouldn't really focus on the effect of specific phrases on the audience, let alone describe Medea's voice as an "eerie high-pitch male voice," as all actors would have been male. Similarly, "This level of unease in the audience" is more based on how the actors speak, rather than what they say, but this could have been presented in different ways. So I'd stick to analysing what the characters say rather than how they may potentially speak.

"which collides with the expectation the audience have for woman of the time" What exactly do you mean here? Sometimes clarity is more important than fancy expression. Also, who are you referring to as your audience- if it is the Ancient Greeks, make sure to use past tense i.e. expectation the audience would have had for women of the time (also careful with proofreading). In this para, you refer to Medea as "witch-like" in both the intro and linking statement, yet do not refer to it in the para.

"This callous act of filicide ultimately having no repercussions for Medea and Euripides’ positioning of her to be above the audience and human level, laughing in her chariot drawn by dragons, tacitly determines her to be villainous." You start to develop some good stuff here, but this sentence is overly long and your analysis becomes lost. Maybe rephrase the last sentence of body para 1, it is slightly convoluted.

"her suffering as an unjust norm of the time" This statement slightly contradicts itself, if it is a 'norm,' then why is it unjust?

"Euripides’ portrayal of Medea being the ideal wife and her own perception of herself of being a “cruel husbands plaything,” further elicits sympathy from the audience for her and works to dilute the violent and callous depictions of her through the play." Good start, but how does it elicit sympathy? You could also talk about societal perceptions of the time here instead. "Dilutes depictions of her" Yes but how does it do this?

Again, be careful with your tense. "In the years that they have been married, Medea has always been obedient to Jason and supported him hence..." If you're talking about something that has happened before the play, use past tense. If you are discussing events that happen during the play, use present tense. Also be careful of little errors and odd phrases. "that is essentially defined ‘mankind.’"Also possession apostrophes, etc. even as being rewarded from the Gods And don't bring anything new into the conclusion that you haven't talked about in the essay. You had heaps of societal evidence and values which was great! If anything, you could have added more quotes to further support some of your points. Hope this was helpful a bit.

[OZLexico]

There are some good ideas in your essay so I'm going to suggest a few "refinements."  I think you could reverse the sequence of ideas in your introduction and then swap around the sequence of your body paragraphs.  If your topic is suggesting that the audience expects Medea to be "witch-like" the opening parts of the play actually contradict this - her suffering is strongly personal, the type of despairing that many Athenians would have heard from their neighbours (if the male behaviour she describes really is that common) - Euripides is particularly good at this type of language. So the audience is immediately disappointed, even more so when Medea actually appears on stage to describe the position of women and their betrayal by the men in their lives. Nothing like a witch to see here (yet).  The witch-like behaviour is in the gruesome nature of her revenge - the poisoned gifts and the vicious planning  to use them.  You'd  also need to modify the linking sentences between the body paragraphs if you are tracking the transformation of "an ordinary woman" into "a witch" and then you can proceed with your comments about a woman seeking justice being unusual and a contradiction of the conventions about women's place in Athenian society.